Saturday, March 10, 2012

More on Guns on Campus

How can students learn or professors teach at their highest level with the anxiety of being surrounded by armed, unpredictable people every day in class? And even if they have their gun (that the NRA wanted them to have) on them, would they have confidence in their ability to use it in self defense? This bill will be the beginning of some major problems rather than creating a supposed safer environment — problems that could be catastrophic.

The pro-gun bullies love to call that type of appeal "predicting blood in the streets." This devalues it with ridicule, and of course leaves everyone to determine their own definition of what constitutes "blood in the streets." Many feel we already have that.

The salient idea for me in this appeal is the damage which would result in introducing the possibility of guns into the teacher / student relationship. This will take a serious toll on the already struggling education system in the US, even if no shots are ever fired.

7 comments:

And yet, your side claims that we walk around in constant fear. What anxiety is this paranoid person going on about? When I learn that a student of mine has a concealed carry license, I know that said person has gone through a background check and taken a safety course. Why would I fear such a student?

In addition, I'm intelligent enough to realize that declaring a gun-free zone isn't a magic charm that will keep everyone inside safe. I know how easy it is to conceal a handgun. Anyone could be doing it. The person who wants to kill many others won't ask permission first.

Try to understand these points:

1. Gun-free zones only disarm law-abiding people.

2. Gun owners who go through the process to get a carry license have been checked out much more than the average citizen.

"Why would I fear such a student?" Well, maybe because some PEOPLE are volatile and irascible. Maybe because some people suffer from rage issues and take drugs. How about the ones who drink too much? The reason you might HAVE to fear a student with a gun, if you were honest about it, is because the unstable one looks just like the responsible one in many cases.

But you don't recognize the value of the licensing process. Do you really imagine that drug or alcohol addicts can stumble through life without consequence until they're issued a license to carry a handgun?

By contrast, the students who tell me that they have carry licenses are ones who have already shown me their responsibility by working hard and being ready to learn. You conflate wackos with license holders, but there's precious little overlap with those two categories.

I feel the East Valley Tribune is making some unbased assumptions.Allowing guns on campus will not have much different effect than guns off campus. People who don't feel themselves responsible or competent enough to carry off campus won't carry on campus and those who do will. And students would have no more reason to fear than when they're at their local grocery store next to people who conceal carry daily.

What is so unpredictable about people with licenses to carry concealed weapons? We already know that they are a vetted sub-population with an almost zero crime rate. As I pointed out on other posts, there is about 1 concealed weapons license holder in every state every year who murders someone on average. That's it.

And we can look at Utah. Citizens with a concealed weapons license can carry anywhere in the state since 2006 and there is not a single instance of a person with a concealed weapons license using their pistol to commit a crime at a university.

Actual, simple, hard data from the real world shows us that citizens with concealed weapons licenses are unbelievably trustworthy. There is no rational basis for any fear of a citizen with a concealed weapons license ... regardless of where they go.